Thread turned into an Occupy T&TTT Thread! We the 99%

[parnold]

As a trouble maker, I couldn't resist......

http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/11/02/apple-computer-hoards-cash-makes-products-in-abusive-conditions/

[Mojave Bob]

Wow, you ARE a troublemaker, aren't you!? This sort of corporate behavior bothers me to no end, and has gone a long way to contributing to such situations as SlowCowboy keeps reminding us of. However, I don't know that we can single out Apple for censure. Can anybody point out an alternative major computer/electronics company that is innocent of this sort of thing? HP? nope. Dell? nope. I suspect that virtually ANY company that is sourcing its product in Asia is complicit in this sort of thing.

[parnold]

Bob:

I doubt if anyone can point to an alternate company that does not do the same thing. Mororola, Samsung, HTC, Dell, HP, Acer. Not to mention almost every other industry.

I often wonder what would happen if the top 5 or 10 US chain stores (Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, K-Mart, Target, etc) would all show a concerted effort to offer US made alternatives. Just the fact that these giants would purchase the initial stock would have an effect on our economy, and if people had easy access to US goods, some may be willing to pay higher prices, I know I would.

My knee-jerk reaction is to ban stores like Walmart, but as the countries second largest employer, this simple minded approach isn't the correct one. Maybe we should start some Occupy Walmart protests and demand that they carry more US made goods!

[mikeschn]

Would anyone pay $999 for an iPad, if it were made in this country?

[Mightydog]

Occupy Walmart

..so many jokes.

If we did an Occupy Home Depot, I'd be poorer than I am now.

[parnold]

Would anyone pay $999 for an iPad, if it were made in this country?

Mike:

Unfortunately, we'll never know, because the greedy won't even think of experimenting with the idea. Not just Apple bashing here.

The article stated that Apple paid $9.00 in labor for each iPad, and also another paragraph refered to the workers making an equivalent of 1.18 an hour. That's about 7.5 hours of labor in each unit. Even at $20.00 an hour for US labor (that's over 40k a year) and adding for benefits (another 50% of base salary) for unskilled labor, that adds $225.00 to the price, and I think I'm estimating way high.

Does this remind anyone of the 99% story? The rich get richer, and usually at the expense of the rest of us!

[Moho]

The root of the problem is much deeper in my opinion. Below is what makes buying US made products so difficult.

I completely support buying US products and do at a slightly increased cost when it is feasible. However the reason that US products are so overpriced is that the workers at the US companies live beyond their means.

What I mean by that is, say for example, 2 adults and 2 kids in a household. They have a 2500 sq ft. 5 bedroom home, 3 cars (one for 16 year old Susie, all financed), They got a pool last summer (which they financed), 2-3 credit cards all with floating balances, etc.

This leads to the 2 adults having to hold full time jobs to make ends meet, in order to have a huge home, 3 cars, a pool, and float the credit card balances month to month. Because of all the working, the adults don't have time to make meals and 3/4 of their meals are purchased from fast food as a result of lack of time. They all have enough clothes to live a month without having to do laundry and majority of these need to be name brand. The reality this is the mindset of the majority of Americans and why most americans are so busy all the time.

Now on top of it being a full time job they HAVE to make 3x more than the majority of the workers in the world in order to pay for all these luxury items.

If people would quit having to "Keep Up with the Jones'" and live within their means, the wage requirement to live would drop and therefore it would reduce the price of the product that the american company makes. It may be WAY to late for this to happen because the corporate giants would just pocket the extra money to pay for their 2nd leer jet but this is where all of this as has lead.

The above family could live well in a 1200 sq ft. 3 bedroom home, with no pool, drive cars that they can afford to PURCHASE and not finance, have a couple week or two worth of clothes and this would reduce credit card balances and monthly expenses. One of the parents could then stay home actually raising the kids instead of expecting TV, schools and babysitters to do all the parenting work for them.

This whole problem is an almost exclusive US problem and not a world problem. As a recent person who has changed their lifestyle to reflect all the above it's amazing how little money you need to live comfortably without all the extra luxuries.

I completely realize it's way to late to fix this and there is no simple solution. But realistically we have no one to blame but ourselves for those sweatshops and deplorable working conditions. We could create the products ourselves if "John Doe" here in the US didn't have to make $30+ per hour in order to keep all the unneeded items and pay all the overextended credit items he has.

In the words of my grandfather "If you ever have to finance anything other than a house, you're living too high on the hog"

[BigAl]

The 'Great Recession' as it's now being formally called has not been caused directly by personal debt built up by a 'greedy' population, although I do agree personal debt is linked and also a problem in its own right.

My parents taught me to live by the same values as Moho's Grandfather.

The problem originated in a banking crisis caused by trading in derivatives and credit default swaps. It was the banks that recklessly borrowed way above what they could afford to pay, and they were fraudulently misrepresenting the value of the assets they owned, on an unimaginable colossal scale. In addition, they gambled huge sums of money that debts would *not* be repayed in credit default swaps. Personal and sovereign (Gov't debt) indebtedness was essential to their plan. The scale of the global banking ponzi scheme is so vast as to be difficult to comprehend, and everything you have seen since, including the Euro crisis is connected.

We were all (collectively) living beyond our means, but it suited the banks to enable people and nations to become indebted because they needed to repackage your future mortgage and credit card payments into fancy derivative products that they could fraudulently re-label as AAA rated and sell for mega profits. The banks needed us to be in debt and made borrowing recklessly easy. They even gave mortgages to dead people and lent vast sums to Greece!

It always surprises me when we grab our pitchforks and torches and have a go at each other when we should focus our criticism upon the real perpetrators who have got away with the crime.

The banks are the players, we are the producers and the politicians (of all shades) are the enablers.

Sorry for the rant, I feel better now! ;)

[Shadow Catcher]

We have no dept other than one car payment, no credit cards, payed off mortgage.
The, it is the fault of the 99% is just silly. Wages for the middle and lower class have stagnated and or fallen where those at the top have gained by orders of magnitude. Intertwined boards of directors voting themselves huge salaries and perks are in part to blame.
Tell me the value added by a commodities trader bidding up the price of oil and why they should not pay taxes on those transactions.
One of the more interesting classes I had the first time through college was an economic anthropology class and Historically when you have a huge difference between the haves and the have nots there is a revolution and we are starting to see that happen. Hopefully it will happen at the ballot box.
Finally
Budgets are moral documents

[parnold]

Sorry for the rant, I feel better now!

Well put!

Putting all the blame on the 99% is like blaming a kid for being fat when you take him to McDonalds for every meal.

The fact that NO bankers are in jail, is more appalling to me than O.J. walking the streets for all those years.

I have an old credit card debt, acquired during a 3 month bout of unemployment during my third divorce. My interest rate when I maxed the card out was 5 or 6%. Not I'm paying 25%. This is common, and is nothing short of extortion. I have been buried beneath debt that was the result of a bit of misfortune, and wanting to keep food on the table for three kids. I never owned a new car until 5 years ago, never financed a car until 5 years ago, and did it then because my job paid 80% of the monthly payment. I don't have a pool, and live in a 1200 sq ft house still with 2 of my 3 kids living with me.

Is it all their fault, absolutely not! But it sure is a hell of a lot harder to get back on track when interest rates have been jacked like they have. I had two cards that were maxed out, HSBC worked with me and allowed me to pay back at 0% interest. Discover said F you. I made the same monthly payments on both accounts. HSBC was paid off years ago. Discover still retains 75% of it's original balance. When I'm done paying for my second child that needed braces, I'll be able to increase the payment.

There was a point that I was paying almost $400.00 a month in credit card interest. Had the US Government had the balls to tell the banks "YOU CANNOT INCREASE INTEREST RATES ON EXISTING DEBTS" my monthly interest payments would have been under $100.00. I would be debt free now if that extra $300.00 a month was actually applied to principal.

So yeah.. I'm the 99%, and angry about it.

[Moho]

I absolutely agree that those at the top (bankers, etc) are to blame for a large majority of the problem. It's a greed problem across the board.

Shadow Catcher, you and I are a minority in the US regarding debt and that minority gets smaller and smaller every year. The percentage of entry college students who aquire debt on a credit card grows every year. Credit has been made way to accessible by all classes. We'll use just the credit cards as an example. US Population is roughly 300 million, Credit card holders is 177 million, average cards owned by those holders is 3, average revolving debt is $16,000. Of those credit card holders, 85% have paid a late fee or over overlimit fee in the past year.

Simply put, this shows people living beyond their means. I'm not saying that the problem is entirely due to the 99% of the population. I was simply stating that the majority of Americans spending habits on non-needed, luxury items help reinforce the "bankers" to live they way they do.

IE: Don't use the credit for a swimming pool you don't need and you realistically can't afford (why you're buying it on credit anyways) and you're not lining the "bankers" pocket.

[Moho]

I wanted to point out that most of what I say will not apply to most people on this board and not directed to anyone in this thread.

If we were in that class that I speak of we'd all have 25ft plus RV's with satellite TV, not living within our means by building our own T&TTT

[absolutsnwbrdr]

I can't wait to occupy my new teardrop.

[absolutsnwbrdr]

Here's a pretty clever "occupy" idea...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JlxbKtB ... ata_player

I have a friend who did it. Took pictures of the envelope with the wood shim in, and dropped it in his mailbox.

[eaglesdare]

Here's a pretty clever "occupy" idea...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JlxbKtB ... ata_player

I have a friend who did it. Took pictures of the envelope with the wood shim in, and dropped it in his mailbox.

i hate to say this, but i really, really like this. we get tons of this stuff. i am going to start doing this today. thanks zach!